


Luck

by The_Great_Nation



Series: The life of Bakugou Izuku [8]
Category: Hollow Knight (Video Games), 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia
Genre: Everyone Needs A Hug, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Midoriya Izuku Has a Quirk, Midoriya Izuku Needs A Hug, Mute Midoriya Izuku, Nomu Izuku, Poor Ogrim
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-28
Updated: 2020-04-28
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:16:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23897386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Great_Nation/pseuds/The_Great_Nation
Summary: Izuku remembers someone who might be have been just as lucky as them.
Series: The life of Bakugou Izuku [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1643749
Comments: 4
Kudos: 158





	Luck

Izuku would never be considered lucky by normal standards. Anyone who heard their story would without a doubt look at them with pity and sorrow. They would talk about how unfortunate they were. 

Izuku does not think the same as them. Luck is something they had in spades when compared to the ones close to them. In the end, they were the only Deku to survive the cull. They were blessed with the power to escape that hell hole. They were granted a family who accepted them without judgment or question. It seemed to Izuku as if they were very lucky indeed.

Although, Izuku was not the only person who twisted people’s perception of luck. Back before Izuku had even met Katsuki and not long after they had left the pit, they met a lucky man.   
\----  
Time was still an abstract construct to them at the time. They knew that the light in the sky seemed to rise and full at even intervals, but they didn’t know that they should be counting the days they spent wandering aimlessly. 

Izuku had preferred barren towns full of elderly humans, they sometimes gave Izuku food mistaking them for a child of the village due to their lacking memory. 

It was in one such village that one person stood out from the rest.

In a barren village full of empty houses and trash littered streets Izuku met Ogrim. The man was fat and his quirk had altered his appearance to make him more beetle-like than human. His skin was a deep red and hard when compared to most human’s fleshy pink. He also had a constant foul-smelling odor, not that Izuku could tell.

Ogrim had settled in the empty village to take up a meager life in isolation due to the unfortunate side effects of his quirk. 

Izuku was told endless stories of the man’s time as a hero and eventually of the incident that resulted in a quirk malfunction. 

At one point in his life, Ogrim could control the amount of stink he produced and often used it to get chase villains out of their hiding places or to even incapacitate them. It was something that had earned him honor and much adoration from the public and from his fellow heroes. But then there came a day when he could no longer control it. 

Although it was not nearly as powerful as it could be, a small amount of the repulsive smell he produced began to seep from the former hero constantly. It caused the people who once cheered his name to turn their backs on him. What was worse was the betrayal of the boss he had looked up to more than anything. 

The beloved hero who ran the agency Ogrim worked for abandoned him without a second thought. That was the straw that led Ogrim to leave the city he once protected. 

The other heroes at his agency had been sad to see him go and Ogrim told many more stories of how wonderful those heroes were. 

How Kind Isma was, or how brave Dryya was. Those were the stories Ogrim told the most. Hardly ever of himself. 

He expressed how much he wished to have any sort of news on how they were doing. He had no computer, nor did he have a tv or phone. 

He also feared to leave his home for an extended amount of time due to a promise he made. The kindly Isma had promised to come to visit him and he didn’t want to miss her. He had no way to contact her, so he waited patiently for her to come. 

It had been 25 years.

Izuku, having no concept of time nor of heroes, simply nodded along. They did not know why but they enjoyed listening to the man’s stories. 

Ogrim also enjoyed their time as well. Isolation was not good for such an extroverted man. Izuku had caught the man talking to the rare trading cards he had of his former hero friends. 

Everyday Izuku would eat Lunch with the man. It was the first time Izuku had food that wasn’t slop or something found in the dumpster. It didn’t taste much better than dumpster food, but it looked much better. 

Ogrim enjoyed these times the best. He said there was nothing better than sharing food with a friend. Not that Izuku had considered the man a friend for a time. Feelings were still new to the young child and any sort of attachment or affection was soon shattered. For a long time, Izuku even considered a man an enemy. Now, Izuku knew why the elder did what he did. He could accept it but still thought of the man as a kindly stranger more than a friend. Memories still too sour and betrayal still ringing with them. 

Izuku had been planning to move on. They were still far to close to the pit to be comfortable, but their departure was forced on them much faster than they wanted. Perhaps they might not have even left if they had been given more time in the other’s care. 

This was changed by Ogrim's actions. 

Ogrim had been under the impression that Izuku’s family had moved into one of the many empty houses that existed in the main village. Perhaps a couple who wanted to raise their seemingly quirkless child away from the stresses of modern society. 

An assumption the other had made on his own, Izuku could not talk after all. Ogrim was kind but was a bit… stupid. 

It had taken some time for the elder man to realize that was not the case.

Perhaps it was the way dirt always clung to Izuku. The other couldn’t detect how Izuku smelled nearly as much as him. He often commented on how Izuku must like to play in the mud. Those comments stopped and the looks started when the filth only seemed to grow with time, in the same places no less. 

Perhaps it was when the other had gone to the village himself and not seen a single house that looked lived in. Yeah, that was more likely. 

Either way, this former hero seemed to leave his reluctance for entering cities and potentially missing his supposed friend behind and went in search of help. The man was still a hero at heart, and he couldn’t leave a runaway or severely mistreated child to suffer. 

Izuku had been waiting in the man’s house patiently hoping to hear more stories or see the trading cards the man had of all his hero friends. Ogrim had promised to even show them his own trading card and tell Izuku his hero name. It brought a foreign sense of curiosity that niggled at their mind and was another reason they chose to stay longer than they had in any other place.

The door opened and Ogrim had stepped in first. His large frame had hidden the figure behind him and Izuku was unaware of the danger until the door to the small house was closed and the police officer stepped out from behind the bug man. 

Izuku didn’t know who the police were at the time. They had seen heroes in the cities, with their colorful costumes and fancy quirks, but never police. 

The officer had a drab uniform on, like the guards there.  
The expression on the officer’s face had been a mix of annoyance and disgust. The same expression the doctors had whenever they looked at the Nomu Children.

Worse, the officer carried a gun. Just like that man.

Suddenly they were reminded of her. Green hair and a kind smile. A kind voice and eyes shining in the moonlight. 

Their vision blurred with suppressed memories and through it, they saw red. 

Logically they knew it was Ogrim standing in front of them. His skin was a deep red, like blood. They could see her lying on the floor and they could see the building puddle of red, red ,red.

It had felt like a betrayal back then. That Ogrim would bring a guard to take them back there.

What would happen to them? Will they make sure to get the job got done, to kill them> Maybe it would be worse and Izuku wouldn’t even be granted death. Their survival of the gas when all others had died would indicate that Izuku had a quirk and was a failure. They didn’t want to find out what became of the siblings who were not killed with the gas or upon birth. 

Under the care of Ogrim Izuku had been able to gain both strength and soul off the couch the man let him nap on and the food he let them snack on. Neither the officer nor the hero was able to stop Izuku.

Izuku could not remember what happened after that point. If they could have seen how they dashed through the walls of the former hero’s home. 

Seen how Soul gathered in their legs and propelled them forward at inhuman speeds. So fast that momentum soon carried them alone and they no longer needed to run. Streaks of soul trailing after a small figure in the distance was all the two saw when they finally gathered their wits and went to look for them.

Izuku traveled through the empty fields for a long time, unwilling to stop, or maybe unable. They only stopped and came back to awareness when they collided face first with a tree. Said tree promptly broke in half and Izuku reeled with the collision. 

Izuku did not think of the man for a long time. It wasn’t until Izuku met Mirio and saw the boy slip through solids like nothing that Izuku had a faint recollection of the events of the past. 

With knowledge of how society worked and an understanding of what it was like to want to help those in need, Izuku could now see Ogrim’s true intentions. The guard was no guard. There was betrayal and the kindly old man was just. A kindly old man who was willing to break a promise with a friend to help the pitiful young child he had found. 

Izuku took the time to research the man. Ogrim might have never told him his hero, but he had gushed enough about his other friends it wasn’t hard to find information. 

Ogrim was known as the White Defender and was part of a Team known as the Five Great Knights. Years ago before All Might arrived on seen they were one of the top hero groups in all of Japan. 

As the White Defender Ogrim looked the same except for the red of his skin being hidden behind white armor made to mimic the chitin of his skin. 

In their research binge, they also learned of the fate of the other heroes. 

Fierce Dryya died in a villain ambush, fighting valiantly alone waiting for reinforcements that came far too late. Despite being outnumbered by the villains who attacked in droves Dryya defeated them all and managed to save all the civilians caught up in the brawl. She succumbed to her wounds only after she saw that heroes arrived.

Ze’mer was the second Knight Izuku read about. Much like her quirk, which was never revealed to the public, Ze’mer’s whereabouts were a mystery. With so much being unknown about the hero who came from abroad, gossip magazines and the news were unrelenting in their quest to dig up any information on the hero. 

It was through this search that on reporter found out about the hero’s lover. The young girl Ze’mer loved was dragged into the public spotlight. Both hero and lover were slandered and harassed endlessly until villains killed the girl. The hero had not been seen since, not even in attendance of the girl’s funeral. 

The story of Hegemol is a bit of another mystery. Hegemol went missing for a period of time after a natural disaster. His body was never found so many believed that the hero was still alive. Still, after a year the hero pronounced killed in action. Not long after that, it seemed as though a villain who looked just like the former hero was prowling the streets. There was never any confirmation on what exactly happened to the Mighty Hegemol. 

Finally, Izuku learned of Isma. The one Ogrim had been waiting for so long.

Isma had been kidnapped by villains and held hostage for ransom. The boss of the agency had refused to pay claiming that if she was weak enough to be captured, she would be of no use to his agency. She has not been found since. With the rest of her allies dead or missing the search for Isma was short and bore no fruit. 

If a normal person heard of this story, Ogrim would be seen as the lucky one. He was alive and well while everyone he cared about was dead or missing. Even luckier is that he didn’t even know this, he lived in peace thinking his beloved friends were still alive.

Truly a lucky man.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello All! I gotta say I'm honored by just how much love I got from the last chapter!
> 
> Today's chapter is brought to you by the angst of the Orgo 2 test I just failed. Sorry for the people who read this series not knowing anything about Hollow Knight. I just really love Ogrim and planned on writing a little one-shot with him at one point. 
> 
> I took to heart the comments about how to use soul for the Crystal Heart, thank you all for your suggestions! Izuku doesn't remember using void to dash through the walls, but they are aware of the crystal heart. The only thing is that they are only able to go in one direction and would have to completely stop to turn. This makes it impractical in most situations and it uses us a lot of soul when used for a long time. However, if they were to use it off a skyscraper or something it would be a pretty good way to get somewhere fast. Just some ideas i've been working on.
> 
> This might not be the only time Hollow Knight characters make an appearance, so if there is anyone you really want to see just let me know!


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